Are Your Investments in Franchise Development Advertising Driving Results?
By: Bailey Golden, Vice President of Sales and Strategy at All Points Public Relations
Investing in the right marketing tactics can significantly impact your ability to generate quality franchise leads and build strong recognition for your franchise opportunity– both of which are crucial for effective franchise growth.
As you determine what may be the best way to invest your marketing dollars, there are several things to consider, including who is your ideal franchisee, where are you looking to grow, what’s your growth goal, and how much budget do you have to allocate toward development? Taking all of that into consideration, you can create a marketing strategy that delivers a high return on investment.
Choosing the Right Tactics for Your Franchise Development Goals
So, what are the best paid tactics for your franchise development strategy? It largely depends on your target audience and the budget you have available. Here are some aspects to consider when developing your marketing strategy:
- Are you looking for single-unit or multi-unit franchisees?
- Are there certain background or experience qualifications your ideal franchisee needs to have?
- What geographic areas are you looking to develop?
Based on answers to these questions, you can start to shape your marketing strategy.
Breaking Down Advertising Tactics: Lead Generation vs. Awareness
To maximize your marketing investment, it’s important to understand the two main priorities: awareness for your franchise opportunity and lead generation. Each serves a unique purpose, and finding the right balance can support both short-term and long-term growth objectives. While targeted tactics help drive lead generation, wide-net campaigns build lasting awareness. Both approaches allow you to share your brand story in the way you want it to be told.
- Awareness for Your Franchise Opportunity:
Building awareness for your brand’s franchise opportunity is essential to attracting the right franchisee prospects. It can be garnered through a variety of efforts, some of which include: strategic public relations efforts; social media such as LinkedIn; and email campaigns. Awareness strategies may not always generate immediate leads, but they play a crucial role in nurturing interest, keeping your franchise top-of-mind for future prospects, and sharing key brand messaging.
- Lead Generation:
While having strong awareness about your franchise opportunity can create impactful lead generation, most franchisors will want to have direct lead generation campaigns in place to spark lead flow, such as digital advertising campaigns with Google, or depending on the franchise opportunity, Facebook and Instagram ads could also be helpful. Digital marketing allows you to target specific areas where you know you have opportunity to develop and grow.
Evaluating and Refining Paid Tactics
A key component of successful franchise development marketing is tracking and analyzing the performance of your tactics. Tools like your CRM system and Google Analytics can help monitor lead gen and paint a clearer picture of top lead sources and their journey.
Live feedback from conversations with leads can also be a valuable source of insight. When speaking with a new lead, ask them how they first heard about your franchise and what touchpoints stood out to them. Although they may mention finding your franchise through the company’s website, there most likely have been additional sightings that kept your brand’s name top of mind.
The benefit of having marketing strategies consistently activated is having steady data collection so you can make informed decisions and adjustments over time. Don’t get bogged down by all the data— focus on what’s most relevant and adjust as needed.
From Strategy to Results: The Path Forward
Diversifying your tactics is essential to connect with your target audience across multiple touchpoints, increasing the likelihood of converting potential franchisees into committed franchisees.
The ultimate goal of franchise development is to ensure that every dollar spent drives both lead generation and franchising awareness. By balancing a range of paid strategies and continuously refining your approach based on data, you’ll maximize the value of your marketing investment and position your brand for success.
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Bailey Golden is the Vice President of Sales and Strategy of All Points Public Relations, a franchise-focused integrated PR agency based on the Chicagoland area, www.allpointspr.com.